


please come and tend to me

by Estrella3791



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Angst, Beaches, Early Mornings, F/M, Fluff, Late Nights, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, but implicitly, i guess, kind of?, sand, the HUG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Estrella3791/pseuds/Estrella3791
Summary: A late night, and a beach (thebeach), and a hug that was several years in the making.They might be okay.
Relationships: Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Comments: 14
Kudos: 62





	please come and tend to me

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what this is.  
> I was supposed to be writing a reflection for a class and then suddenly it was this thing and I don't know how or why.  
> Please enjoy.
> 
> (Also the title is from Priscilla Ahn's song "Willow Weeping" because I couldn't think of a title but Ao3 was telling me to come up with one. There may come a day when I think of a meaningful title for a thing, but it is not THIS day. Anyway the point of this is that Priscilla is a fantastic singer/songwriter and if you have time or the inclination you should check her out.)

Ellie is drained. 

She’s not sure when all the energy got sucked out of her. Somewhere in between the ups and downs of daily life, after Tom dealt pornography and before Fred lost his first tooth, probably.

One night, she is tired of the incessant wearing and tearing of single motherhood, of saying “yes” and “no” and “maybe,” of picking up Legos and burning supper. (Joe always cooked and never burned things.) The weight of the work she’s chosen is pressing her down into the mattress, so heavy that she can hardly breathe. She is thinking about marriages and murder and children and church and her heart hurts.

She tosses and turns until she gives up and swings her legs over the side of the bed.

Her heart pounds as she sneaks down the stairs. She thinks that she should stay here, that she’s not a very good mother to be leaving like this, and she thinks that she _can’t_ stay here, that it’ll be better for Fred to wake up and be unable to find Mum than for him to wake up and have her shout at him. And Tom's here, anyway.

She slips on her Wellies and slips out the door.

It’s chilly, because the breeze never quite dies down in Broadchurch, especially at night. She pulls her windbreaker more tightly around herself and sets off towards the beach, needing the timeless refrain of waves on sand. 

It’s a long walk through town, but she doesn’t care. Her head spins with thoughts of the mistakes she’s made, past and present. (She can think of several probable future ones, too.) She wishes fervently that she made a different choice, any different choice, than the one she did yesterday.

She knows, though, that wishing doesn’t change anything. She learned that lesson a long time ago, in ways much more painful than anyone deserves. 

She arrives at the beach.

She can see someone sitting there, bum in the sand, glaring at the water. It is Hardy, and she wonders why she cannot get a fucking _break_. 

She sits down next to him anyway.

“Miller,” he says, not looking away from the endless crash of water. 

She hates him for using that name, because she hates that it’s still hers. She won’t look at him.

He’s looking at her.

Her eyes sting, and her heart cries out for something. She does not know what it’s crying for but she lacks the energy to be curious.

(She’s always been a bit oblivious. Joe teased her at their wedding for missing all his signs. “I had to spell it out,” he said, laughing, “you just couldn’t seem to take my hints!” At the time it had seemed sweet, a little alluring, that he could keep secrets from her. Now it makes her want to be sick.)

“Still angry with yourself about the arrest?” Hardy asks, accent thick, hair windblown.

She still won’t look at him. She watches a gull diving and wishes she could follow it. Things are peaceful under the water, silent in a way life never is above the surface. 

Hardy grunts.

“People make mistakes,” he says, awkward in his attempt to be comforting. “It isn’t your fault.”

“Not what you were saying earlier,” she says. She was trying to joke, but there is a blob of crying in her throat that is audible in her voice. She is mortified. Just once she’d like to prove to him that she’s _strong_ , that she’s _brave_ , that she can bloody well do the job without his coddling. 

He looks away from her, swallowing hard, visibly uncomfortable in the corner of her eye.

“Yeah, well,” he says. “Woulda stopped you if I thought you were out of line, so.”

That’s uncharacteristic enough to make her look at him, and he returns her gaze with red-rimmed eyes. 

He reeks of whiskey, of drinking too much too fast. 

“ _Someone’s_ had a good night,” she says bitterly. 

“Nah,” he says, “was rubbish.”

“The drinks or the date?” she asks. **_Was_ ** _there a date?_ she asks him with her eyes. Her heart leaps nervously in her throat, not wanting to hear the answer, and when he meets her gaze his eyes say _yes_.

Jealousy burns hot and green and harsh in her chest, and she feels all the more angry because of it.

“You shouldn’t do that,” she snaps at him, unsure of whether she means the drinking or the dating, “you’re too old.”

“Ach,” he scoffs, “leave me ‘lone.”

There is a note of hurt in his voice, the kind that she seldom hears from him, and regret flares sharply in her temples.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it, and a tear trickles down her face. She thinks darkly that she can’t say anything right today. “‘M a bit of a wanker today.”

“Least you’re not being called shitface,” he says. 

She laughs, watery and thin. 

“Could be worse,” she agrees.

They watch the waves for a while. There’s a streak of grey on the horizon that will turn into purple and pink and gold. 

Hardy suddenly surges to his feet. Ellie blinks up at him, taken aback. 

“C’mon, Miller,” he says.

The name doesn’t sting this time, and she clambers to her feet, wondering as she does it _why_ she’s doing it. He can’t tell her what to do out here. This is her turf, her surf, her stomping grounds. 

It occurs to her, not for the first time, that she follows him because she wants to. Because she likes his company and she wants to hear what his upsettingly brilliant brain will come up with next and she wants to balance out his cynicism. 

(Problem is, some days she thinks she’s becoming a cynic herself.) 

They stumble along the beach together, feet catching in the sand, until they’re both panting and she’s sweating and he slows to a stop and bends over, hands on his knees. 

“Physical exertion,” he says, in between gasps. “Apparently it’s good for you.”

“I’m sure it is,” she says, “but I don’t want any part of it.”

He looks at up at her, through his floppy fringe, and her heart cries out for something again. This time she thinks she might know what it wants but dismisses it as ridiculous.

“You don’t want to be healthy?” he asks.

She flops down into the sand, feels the shifting uncertainty of it, sifts some through her fingers.

Her brain is starting to go a bit fuzzy, courtesy of sleep deprivation and her foolish, foolish heart, and it sparks some accidental vulnerability. 

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be healthy,” she blurts. “No matter what I do.”

She squeezes her fist around the grains, clinging, and watches them escape her grasp anyway. She can't seem to hold onto anything.

There’s a thudding sound as Hardy sits down next to her. She can feel him looking at her but refuses to look back. She closes her eyes and thinks about the impermanence and unreliability of everything that life has to offer. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, and there’s _something_ , in his voice, something hopeful and somehow small. Her heart leaps and she squishes her eyes more tightly shut.

“No,” she says, running her hand through the sand again. “I’m not sure of anything.”

He doesn’t reply to that, and her eyes fly open of their own accord. He’s squinting against the wind, which is whipping his hair around, and her heart clenches and cries, cries, _cries_.

Ellie knows love. She knows it well. She knows the soaring, heady, thrilling highs of it, and she knows the crushing, devastating, excruciating lows of it. She knows how it heals your heart and breaks it, simultaneously, sometimes. She knows how to love as a daughter, a mother, a wife, a friend. 

She looks at Hardy and wonders if she remembers how to love as a lover.

He looks back at her, and her breath catches in her throat. There’s something electric between them, something thick and alive and charged with tension, and she thinks that they are too old for this. 

“Miller,” begins Hardy. His voice breaks and he clears his throat. “Ellie,” he tries again.

Her pulse slams into her throat. He doesn’t use it often, her given name, and she’d forgotten the way his mouth curls around it, the way that it’s smooth and soft on his tongue. (It might be one of the only times his tongue talks softly.)

She swallows hard and audibly. She can’t think of anything to say. Her mouth is dry. 

“ _Ellie_ ,” says Alec, and he sounds reverent and it’s too much, _too much_ — 

“Can I have a hug?” she hears herself say, and there’s something roaring in her ears and she thinks _you’re ridiculous_ at herself, she thinks _what’s wrong with you_ , she thinks _you’re too old and too stupid and too slow_ — 

“ _Yes_ ,” he breathes, and he scooches closer and she shuffles in and he wraps his arms around her and it’s awkward and a little uncomfortable and _wonderful_ , it’s _wonderful_. 

“Hardy,” she tries, and he snorts, shushes her, draws her closer with those startlingly strong arms.

“In a minute, Miller,” he says, resting his chin on top of her head. He’s all angles, bony and sharp, and she feels incredibly lumpy in comparison but she can’t _really_ be bothered about it because she’s warm despite the nipping wind. “You can stop this in a minute. Just,” and he swallows, she can hear his throat work, she revels in the sound of his steady heartbeat against her ear, “just let me…”

She waits, but he doesn’t take a breath to start talking, doesn’t seem like he’s going to finish his thought.

“What?” she asks, because she’s used to him leaving her hanging but not here, not now, not like this. She needs to know. “Let you what?”

He takes a shaky breath.

“Let me enjoy it,” he says, little more than a whisper, embarrassed and open. He's let her in before, but this time it's on _purpose_. He's opening himself up, exposing his jugular, showing her his weak spot.

Her whole body shudders as the thrill of this runs through it, and she thinks about the opened arms, the early morning teas, the late-night chippie runs. She thinks about the clumsy comfort, the post-case bench debriefs, the secrets and the shouting and the constant companionship. She thinks about brown eyes and trembling lips and she closes her eyes and nestles into his chest. 

He really _is_ a great hugger, she thinks.

“Okay,” she says.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading, I still don't know what this is, I bluffed my way through the title and the summary so if you can think of better ones for either please feel free to let me know.  
> (Thank you so much for reading. It means a lot to me. It is my most fervent wish that you have a fantastic day.)


End file.
